Cratering

Going home today

A successful vacation, indeed, for all of them but me. I had fun but was sadly unable to disconnect myself completely from work. Big, bad things happened in my area, and while others covered ably for me, I am walking back into a buzz saw tomorrow (really, starting this afternoon). What a helpless feeling, to watch it all unfold via email and a couple of phone calls. I’ve got a real mess on my hands, both technologically and in terms of credibility. “Where the fuck were you when we needed you last week, asshole?” I was drunk by a pool in Wisconsin, thanks for asking.

Still, everyone else had a great time and so I’ll chalk this up as a major success. I was going to write up a thing with my observations here, but it was too Seinfeld-y (“what’s the deal with frozen margaritas?”) and lame. Cancel editing this post? All changes will be lost. OK.

I do have one question I need answered, and it’s about the ubiquitous teen romance going on here. I could imagine the locals buying a day pass to the water park and hanging out in there, doing their makeout thing like they do and then going home. I saw enough of that and it makes sense; I’d have done it if I had an equivalent place at that age. What I don’t get is all the teen love up here in the hotel hallways of the resort. Lots of hand-holding, lap-sitting, tongue-tasting going on up here. How is that happening? Is it just the most magical of coincidences that the families of our young lovers schedule their vacations together? Is it romance borne of convenience between kids of families that are old friends? I thought maybe there are some school or church trips, but there wasn’t enough other evidence of that, like giant groups of teens in matching uniform shirts and frazzled chaperones scheduling their fun. What gives?

One other memory will be the emerging comic skills of my son. He’s figured out that making people laugh is a serious rush. He’s also getting better at it. He writes jokes now, and they’re as hit-or-miss as you might expect from a six-year-old. But he slayed us yesterday with this one:

How can you tell when a squirrel has to pee?
He’s holding his nuts.

I know, not quite Lewis Black, and maybe you had to be there and share half his DNA, but it killed.